


The Zen of Losing Everything

by tjs_whatnot



Category: Magic Mike (Movies)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Yuleporn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5404325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Losing everything has never been this freeing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Zen of Losing Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inlovewithnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/gifts).



> Beta read by Sherylyn who is the best! <3 <3

“What are you doing?” Richie asked.

Ken stood at the water’s edge in a Speedo, his sarong in the sand beside him, weighted against the wind by his sandals and sunglasses. He was balancing effortlessly on one foot, the other foot wedged in his crouch. “Yoga. You should try it.”

“I have tried it. None of it required me to be able to stand like that.”

“This is not for beginners, for tryers, this is for the devout. But I could get you here.”

“Nah, that’s okay, I don’t think I could devout to anything that makes me look so ridiculous.”

Ken’s stance faltered for just a moment, but he steadied before he had to break his pose. “Your loss.”

Richie just stood there watching Ken.

“Can I help you with something?” Ken finally asked, feeling Richie’s eyes on him and not liking what that knowledge was doing to his chi, or the beat of his heart.

“I’m good.”

Ken tried to ignore him. It didn’t work. “Want to go for a swim?”

“Sure,” Richie answered and began removing his tank top as he flipped off his sandals.

Ken put his foot down and raised his joined hands over his head and then bent over at the waist, wrapping his arms around his calves. Breathing deep and recapturing the feeling of peace he had been experiencing in his aloneness.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t find peace among people, it was just different. Right now he needed the peace of being alone. So much was changing, things were beginning and others were ending and some of them put him right in the middle of chaos and confusion and some he watched from the sides.

Mercedes had left earlier that month—finally—and had taken the drugs with her, and he was happy about that, of not having that fear of the police and of being caught. But he did occasionally miss her, not the drama, not the last couple of months where they were on completely different pages, him trying to clean up and be a “responsible adult;” her with trying and failing within a weekend stretch and then holding his sobriety against him as if it were a mortal failing. How do you counter that sort of ridiculousness?

So she had left. Besides the drugs she had also taken a fair few of their friends… and all of their money. And still he thought he was somehow better off. Starting over. It sort of felt right that it happen from zero. Nothing to hold him back, to tie him down.

He was pretty. He’d be taken care of. He wasn’t worried about that. He was worried about being beholden to anyone. He’d been a kept man before. Before Mercedes and once while with her. Before Mercedes it had been Steven. A man who had promised him the world—a recording contract and a music video—if Ken just sometimes sucked his dick and let the man fuck him.

Ken was young and believed Steven and didn’t realize that their story was one of the oldest in the world. He also didn’t realize that this made him a male prostitute. He had yet to associate sex with the favors it could bestow and had thought they were _in love_. These were things people in love did, helped them with their career, sucked their dicks.

Later, with Mercedes, he’d learned. Or thought he had. He’d probably never really understand just how horrible people could be; mostly he was okay with that. At least this time he’d gone in with his eyes open. He knew it was a transaction, Mark supplied him with what he needed, coke and occasionally rent money when Mercedes blew theirs, and in exchange, he sometimes sucked his dick and let the man fuck him.

He didn’t want that anymore. He didn’t want what he and Mercedes had either, but he knew he couldn’t be alone for long. Good things never happened when he was alone. Even though he had mostly given up on the drugs, on the bad habits, on the negativity and darkness so much of his life had been shrouded in since stripping had taken over it, he still felt something missing. He felt he was beginning to find his way to something pure and mystical. He felt it almost immediately after Dallas fucked them all over. It was another moment that felt horrific at the time, but almost a second after, felt freeing. Staring at zero there too.

If it was going to happen, he’s lucky it happened when it did. While he was still pretty. He could find another job taking off his clothes, if that’s what he wanted. He wasn’t sure. He had remembered that time before Mercedes, before Dallas, before the drugs. He had _promise._ So much promise.

“Hello?”

Richie was calling him. When Ken looked over he saw that it probably wasn’t the first time he’d called him. “Sorry.”

“Where were you?”

Ken shrugged. “Nowhere good.”

“Well, get your mind out of there and bring it here to the right now, ‘cause, darlin’, the right now is fuckin’ perfection.” He ran into the waves, completely naked and completely beautiful. Ken watched him go, marveling as he had done before, how he can detach himself so much from the naked perfect that is the human body while he’s on stage and admire it so very much when he’s not. Richie’s body was perfection, always had been. And yet, it was never, until they are alone, just the two of them, that he let his mind reflect on it. He supposed that was for the best, hard-ons while on stage were highly frowned upon, even more so with groups of male, probably-mostly straight friends.

They weren’t really convenient in the now either, but at least here he could run into the water and hide it under the thunderous waves.

“You’ve been stuck in that beautiful head of yours for days now,” Richie said when Ken caught up to him just past the break. “What has you so perplexed?”

“Life. The many faceted and wondrous that is life.”

“What aspect of it in general?”

Ken shrugged. “The zen of losing everything; how it can all turn to shit and simultaneously feel the most freeing. You know?”

Richie shook his head before throwing it back to soak his already dripping hair. Ken bit his lip, losing his train of thought.

“Well, how I could lose everything at the same time I was ready to give it up anyway, I just didn’t realize I was at that place until it had happened.”

“You were ready to be robbed, unemployed and homeless before it happened?” Richie asked.

“Fuck you. You know what I mean. I was ready to move on from Mercedes, was ready to get out of Dallas’ sleazy clutches, I just don’t know how long it would have taken if it had been entirely up to me.”

“So, you’re thankful for losing everything?”

“I am at peace with losing everything. You?”

“Am I happy you lost everything?”

Ken scowled at him. 

Richie shrugged. “Am I happy to be out of a job? Not really. I mean, I could have left Dallas at any time, but I just wish the decision had been up to me. Am I happy that you’re living on my couch most nights? It’s not bad, tolerable even. But on a whole? I’m happy. Things can only go up from here, right?”

“Right.”

They swam along the break for a while until they were just tired enough to make it back to the shore without drowning. Still, they both crawled onto the beach, and after Richie looked around to make sure there weren’t anyone else on the beach to see his nakedness, they just laid there, catching their breath. 

Later, after they’d gotten dressed and started a fire, the sun just beginning to make its downward journey, Richie asked out of the blue, “Did Dallas ever come on to you?”

“Dallas? Yeah, a few times, you?” 

“All the time.”

“Really? You ever…?” Ken held his breath as he waited for a response. He’d never figured out Richie on the Kinsey scale. He always seemed straight as an arrow, but there were times, moments, when he felt he could very easily reach over and kiss him without being pushed away or punched.

Richie shrugged. “A few times. The man could really give a hand job. What about you?”

“I let him suck my dick a few times, you know, to prep me for the stage.”

Richie laughed. “Wasn’t it always about that?” He cleared his throat and put on his best Dallas voice. “Let me just help you out with that, ar’ight, ar’ight.”

Ken laughed.

There was a moment of silence.

“You ever…?” Richie started. 

“Ever what?” Ken helped.

“Been with any other guys?”

Ken swallowed. “A few.”

“What was it like?”

Ken stared at the fire, refusing to look at Richie. He knew he’d lose his nerve if he was to look at him. He wanted to be serious and give Richie what he seemed to need—the truth, all of it. Even though he wasn’t looking at him, he could sense Richie’s interest, it was definitely something more than mere curiosity.

“I liked it. If it had been with a man I liked more, respected more, I imagine I’d even venture to say I loved it. But, being with the right person, male or female, makes all the difference.”

“What did you like about it?” Richie asked in a whisper.

Ken worried that this was a conversation that might take longer, or have consequences that an interruption of a party — which always happened on the beach at night when a fire had been started — might make awkward.

“Ask me again later, okay?”

“Why later?” Richie asked, but as way of answer, headlights bathed them for a second before extinguishing. Within minutes they were surrounded by what Ken referred to as The Beautiful People, those who were still young enough, or dumb enough, to think their lives would work themselves out while they frolicked and fucked. 

He’d been one of those once. He barely remembered it now. 

“Sure, later,” Richie agreed, standing up and welcoming Tito with the customary bro hug, clasped fists pulling each other into a one-shoulder hug.

Ken sighed in relief at the interruption but he couldn’t help noticing that the rest of the night, Richie kept stealing glances at him. They were hard to read, but some of them made him yearn for things he couldn’t imagine were possible.

“Hey, darlin’, where you going?” Tarzan asked as Richie started to walk away only a few hours later.

He shrugged. "Not feelin' it. I'll see y’all tomorrow, yeah?"

They all said their goodbyes by calling him a pussy and a lightweight. He flipped them all off, but before he left he called out to Ken, "You crashing at mine, yeah?"

Ken nodded. "If that's cool? I got nowhere else to go." 

"Darling, you _always_ have somewhere to go."

Ken blushed and nodded. "Thank you."

He stayed for a few more beers; a few more stories about what everyone did with their day and what they were going to do with their future. Tobias had gotten a van and Tarzan had painted it and it was gorgeous and they were all very excited about what would come next.

"We should go to Myrtle Beach this year," Tito had said as Ken was about to pack it in for the night.

"Myrtle Beach?"

"The convention. One last hurrah. Retire in style, what do you say, beautiful?" Tarzan had asked.

"Not that you need to retire," Tito added. "You have a long career in front of you, if you want it."

They were pitying him. All of them were. They were going to start a business, were going to go on and do great things, like Mike had, and they were going to leave him. Leave him to the life of a stripper as if he couldn't do anything else. Is that what they thought of him? All they thought he could be?

Just like Mike.

"Let's talk about it tomorrow, yeah? With Richie?" he answered after a minute. He really just needed to get away now.

He grabbed a few more beers for the walk home. It wasn't far, but he wanted to have a lot more in him before he got there. He was feeling on the edge of reckless and he needed the bottles and the time of the walk to either push him over the edge of doing something stupid, or to talk himself out of it.

Half an hour later, he stumbled his way into Richie's tiny apartment where he was squatting. 

"Hey, beautiful," he slurred to Richie, who was sitting on the couch—his bed— watching something in the dark, the colors screaming across the bare walls.

"Hey yourself," Richie answered, turning down the television, but not off, as that would put them in complete darkness.

"Why'd you come home so early?"

Richie shrugged. "Told you, wasn't feeling it."

"Feeling it? That's important to you, is it?"

Richie studied him. "You high?"

"Me? No. Not anymore. I don't do that anymore. Don't do anything anymore."

"What's going on with you then?"

Ken could tell him about the world spinning while he stood still, he could tell him that he had forgotten what it was he wanted to do with his life before he had been waylaid by Tampa, by the life they lived. But instead he decided that he'd rather continue their conversation on the beach, now that it was just the two of them, alone.

"You asked me some interesting questions back there on the beach. I was just wondering… are you really curious? Are you really… looking for…?"

Richie studied the television as if it held all the answers to the questions Ken had just asked. Finally, a very long moment later, he looked back up at Ken. "I'm really curious."

"In a…" Ken waved his hand, "general sense? Or curious about what… how we…?"

"Yeah, that one."

"What do you want to know?"

"What it's like. If it's how I imagine it would be. If it's… it's… worth it."

"Worth what?"

"Worth the possibility of losing you," he whispered in one breath.

Ken was suddenly weak in the knees. He had been wondering that same thing, wondering if he was about to make the stupidest mistake in his life. Could he really jeopardize the one thing he had left? Was it worth it? 

He now desperately wanted to know.

"Maybe it would be okay…" he started.

"Okay?" Richie asked.

"Okay, because we both want the same thing — to know, and we both are terrified of the same thing — to lose everything."

Richie sat up. "So… what do we do now?"

Ken took a step towards the couch. "We find out."

Richie wiped his hands on the little bit of cutoff jeans as if wiping off the sweat that had prickled on his palms. Ken felt his own sweat bead on his forehead as he took another step towards Richie, who was looking as terrified as Ken felt.

"How?" Richie asked.

Ken took another step, then a deep breath before he sat on Richie's lap, straddling him. "We talk."

"Talk?" Richie almost whined, his hands hesitantly resting on Ken's outer thighs.

"Well, yeah. There are things about being with a man that you have to consider that you don't have to with a woman."

"Like?"

Ken was going to roll his eyes but instead looked down at their crotches. Richie followed his eyes and blushed. "Oh, yeah. How do we…?"

Ken smiled. "Like I said: we talk."

Richie nodded, but bit his lip and adjusted under Ken. "Okay. We talk. But only… do you think we could do that without you… being right here… all I want to do is…"

"Is…?"

He stammered a bit more before he growled in frustration. "I just want to kiss you."

Ken smiled. The butterflies in his stomach were doing cartwheels. "Okay. We'll talk later."

He placed one hand on Richie's chest, the other fluttering between his shoulder, neck and face as if not sure where it belonged. Richie just watched him as he settled at the back of Richie's neck, pulling him just a bit as he leaned himself forward to touch his lips tentatively against Richie's.

It was only tentative for a moment. Then Richie snaked his arms around Ken, one hand flat against his lower back and the other in between his shoulder blades, pulling Ken tight against him, his mouth opening and devouring Ken's.

It was only a moment later when Ken's cock began to harden painfully against Richie's torso. He really didn't want to, but he had to break the kiss.

Richie looked confused for a minute, like a child who had his favorite toy ripped from his arms when he wasn't expecting it. Then he threw his head back and laughed.

Ken smiled and rested his forehead on Richie's chest. Marveling on where he was and what he was doing and how, so far, it didn't seem like they had ruined anything. "Tell me what you want."

Richie stopped laughing. "Honestly, I haven't thought past the kiss. But… well… I've been imagining that kiss for a really long time."

Ken raised his head and looked at Richie. "Really? Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Richie shrugged. "You were with Mercedes. I thought that made you off limits for a few very important reasons."

Ken sighed. "So much time wasted." 

Richie smiled wide and Ken's heart felt it was literally melting. How did this even happen? He'd never been quite this content and quite this terrified all at once. It made him feel almost high. That feeling that everything was fitting exactly where it was supposed to fit and that there were no consequences and no regrets.

Richie's hands were now on Ken's ass, pulling him even closer. Ken moaned at the feeling of his cock being trapped against Richie's stomach. He wasn't going to be able to talk rationally for much longer.

"There's nothing else you imagined?"

Richie blushed again. "I sometimes imagined your oh-so-pretty mouth wrapped around my dick. Imagined what your head would look like in my crotch, what it would feel like."

Ken slid off of Richie's lap and spread his legs, fitting himself between his knees.

He worked on the buttons of Richie's cut-offs, but before he could shimmy the tight fabric over the man's massive thighs, Richie reached down and took Ken's chin, raising his head to look at him. He ran his thick thumb along Ken's jaw and the look he was giving was so fond, so tender, and not even a touch of fear in his eyes, like all his dreams were coming true. Ken swallowed hard. He'd seen that expression on other men when he'd been in between their legs, but it had never affected him like this before. He knew instantly that they were too far in now to go back and that Richie, for one, would never want to return.

"You know," Richie started, and Ken marked the new even more husky tone in his voice, "we could go back to my bedroom, be more comfort… what? What did I say?"

Ken hadn't realized his look of panic had been so noticeable. But this was Richie. He noticed everything and he already knew how to read Ken. _My bedroom_ , my house you live in, my food you eat, my dick you suck… _What am I doing_?

But it was fleeting. This wasn't about that, this was _nothing_ like those other times. For yes, as much as he wanted Richie to take care of him, make life easier and more fulfilling, he wanted to do equally as much for the other man, wanted to give him everything. 

Richie tilted his head and looked so sadly at Ken as he ran his fingers along the man's temples, before slightly pushing him away a bit so that he could stand up, bend down and take Ken's hand—like Ken had seen him do to countless audience women at the club, and he had to admit, he felt just as singled out and blessed as any of them had—and directed Ken to his feet and to the back room. 

" _Our_ bedroom," Richie corrected in a whisper. 

They were kissing again, and this time, they were also tearing and tugging at each other's clothes. Their tank tops, Ken's board shorts and underwear, Richie's jean shorts. Then Ken fell to his knees and pulled down Richie's briefs.

" _Fuck_ me!" Ken breathed through his teeth, taking in the size and massive girth of _The Curse_.

He knew Richie called it that because, while it might be a Gift as a stripper, it was anything but in the actual sheets where he'd yet to find anyone who could take it all. Ken really wanted to be that person, he did. But being so close and the idea of it filling any part of him, made him swallow hard, his asshole clinching.

He refused to look at Richie until he had schooled his terror. He did not want Richie to read that like he read everything else.

"It's magnificent," he said, finally looking up at Richie. It really was. A piece of art. "Can I…?"

"Can you what?"

Ken stood up and pushed Ken to the bed, climbing on top of him, looking him in the eyes, hoping to show how very sincere he was when he whispered, "Worship it."

Richie's grin lit up the whole room. His eyes twinkled. "By all means. Sing it an aria if you'd like."

Ken laughed. "An aria? I see hanging out with me has taught you a thing or two about music."

"I pay attention."

Ken took his time travelling down the length of Richie's body, taking it all in, touching, tasting. Never had he imagined in all these years he'd admired his body, fantasied what it would feel like, that he would actually be here.

Richie quivered and shook at every touch, ever taste of Ken's lips and tongue. When Ken got back down to his cock, he balled his fists into the sheets as Ken took him in his hands, running his thumb along the tip before running his fingers along the veins, sliding his hand down the shaft, grasping tight and pulling.

As Ken continued to stroke, he put the tip into his mouth, flicking the slit with his tongue.

Richie groaned and pulled himself up slightly on his elbows so he could watch. "So beautiful."

Ken's face reddened and he looked up at Richie through his lashes. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for him, nothing he would deny him. He took a deep breath and slid the rest of his mouth down Richie's length, barely even touching the knuckle of the hand still stroking him.

 _The Curse indeed_ , he thought as he synched his mouth and hand to stroke together, opening his jaw wider, taking him deeper in his mouth with each push. Once he got the rhythm, he took his other hand down between his legs and began to stroke his own, much smaller, much more manageable cock.

He could feel Richie's fight against the urge to pump his hips, drive his cock further, faster. Ken obliged by speeding his pace, feeling Richie's cock against the back of his throat at each thrust. 

Ken's grip around his and Richie's cocks were so tight, he could feel the orgasm begin, could feel the come fill the shaft probably before Richie himself did. At least that's how it seemed as he wasn't nearly as shocked by it as Richie was when he screamed out and watched as Ken swallowed it painfully down.

Richie's eyes widened as Ken sat up and wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand, took up an unused corner of sheet to wipe at Richie's thighs, where Ken's orgasm had been splattered. 

"Jesus, that was… was…" Richie began but couldn't finish. He just threw his head back and laughed joyously.

Ken wanted to say something too, but his throat ached too much to use it at the moment. Instead he curled up beside Richie, wrapped his arms around him.

"You are… that was…" Richie continued to try and find the words. "Ah-fucking-mazing!"

Ken blushed, hiding his face in Richie's chest. After a moment he croaked out, "We are going to have to get some lube."

"Yeah?" Richie asked as if waiting for a punchline.

"I'd much rather not be able to walk for a week than not be able to sing for a week."

Richie looked at him with a mix of guilt and hope. "You mean…?"

He was like a kid at Christmas and there was nothing Ken didn't want him to have. "I do. It will take some prep, some work, we'll have to take it slow… but yes, I very much want you inside me. All of you."

Richie pulled Ken close, and as he drifted off to sleep, Ken again thought about what it meant to lose everything and how sometimes it was in the losing that you finally got what you really wanted, really needed.


End file.
